"Hello mah honey, hello mah baby, hello my ragtime gal!" - Michigan J. Frog in "One Froggy Evening"
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2 DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
How could Warner Brothers possibly top last year's Looney Tunes Golden Collection, a four disc boxed set filled to brimming with 56 classic Looney Tunes shorts and incredible extras? With the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume Two, of course, this time featuring 60 shorts and an equally impressive set of extras. Clear some space on your shelf: once you read the details, you'll want to add Volume Two to your collection.
Disc one is dedicated to "Bugs Bunny Masterpieces." As Looney Tunes' main star, Bugs appeared in more shorts than any other character. It should come as no surprise, then, that every one of the fifteen shorts included on this disc is a bona fide classic. In "Bunny Hugged," Bugs climbs into the wrestling ring when Ravishing Ronald, "The De-natured Boy," proves to be no match for vicious brute The Crusher. Competing French chefs try to make a meal of our hero in "French Rarebit." Bugs meets a baby-faced bank robber in "Baby Buggy Bunny." Bugs is outwitted by Cecil Turtle in "Tortoise Beats Hare" and "Rabbit Transit." Bugs has a western showdown with Yosemite Sam in "Bugs Bunny Rides Again." "Gorilla My Dreams," "Hyde and Hare," "The Big Snooze"...the list goes on and on.
Two favorites from disc one feature strong female roles. "Broomstick Bunny" marks the first appearance by June Foray (Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends) as Witch Hazel, the cackling old crone who sheds bobby pins each time she runs from a room. The ugly sorceress worries about getting beautiful as she grows older. She thinks Bugs is just the thing that will perfect her latest potion, but she can't bring herself to use him because he "reminds me of Paul, my pet tarantula." Foray's performance is incredibly funny, Bug's Halloween mask is a scream, and the short has a look of stylish elegance. "Little Red Riding Rabbit" is a variation of the classic fairy tale, but in this version, Red is an overbearing, obnoxious loudmouth ("I've got a little bunny rabbit which I'm taking to my grandma's. To have, see!"). At first, Bugs does battle with the mean wolf, but then realizes that they should be teaming up to fight their real enemy: the sublimely stupid Red. Filled with funny sight gags (look for the excellent variation on the old "in one door and out another" routine) and hysterically funny line readings by Red, this short is a real gem.
Another memorable short on disc one is "Slick Hare." Set in a Hollywood nightclub, the "Mocrumbo," this classic features caricatures of film royalty, including Humphrey Bogart, Gregory Peck, Ray Milland, and the Marx Brothers. Bogie demands that chef Elmer Fudd serve him fried rabbit. Elmer decides to serve kitchen intruder Bugs, leading to a chase that takes us from the Mocrumbo's filthy kitchen (which, according to an accompanying commentary, is an accurate representation of the state of the kitchen in Hollywood's real-life Mocambo) to Carmen Miranda's fruit-bedecked head. Be on the lookout for crooner Frank Sinatra, who is so thin, he sucks himself into a straw.
Disc two focuses on "Road Runner and Friends." Eleven of this disc's fifteen cartoons star the Road Runner and his tireless pursuer, Wile E. Coyote. Truth be told, each Road Runner short is practically the same as the one that comes before and after it. Wile E. is hungry, thinks Road Runner would make a perfect meal, and uses an escalating series of failed schemes and plans to try to snag the bird. Thanks to its wide range of plotlines, it is feasible to watch the entire Bugs Bunny disc in one sitting without being bored. The same cannot be said of the Road Runner disc. Still, the shorts manage to be inventive even within the strict parameters they must follow. Standout moments include Wile E. baking up a chicken he has fashioned out of clay, discovering it is inedible, and baking up a trashcan in which to throw it away ("There They Go-Go-Go"); literally heating up a can of soup and then attempting to eat the tin container ("Guided Muscle"), and the oft-repeated visual gag of Wile E. chasing the Road Runner while carrying a fork and knife and wearing a napkin tied around his neck.
The desert settings of these shorts are visually beautiful, and it is fascinating to see how the visual style changes from short to short. In the first short presented, "Beep Beep," the backgrounds are cartoonishly realistic. By the time we get to the seventh short, "Gee Whiz-z-z," the backgrounds have evolved to a wonderfully abstract style.
Four other shorts round out disc two. "Cheese Chasers" and "Mouse Wreckers" star mice pals Bert and Hubie along with their nemesis, Claude the cat. "Cheese Chasers" cleverly turns the idea of cats chasing mice on its ear by having Bert and Hubie attempt to commit suicide by offering themselves to a spooked Claude. Watching the mice continually trying to fling themselves into Claude's mouth is kicky fun. In "Mouse Wreckers," the friends find the perfect house.if only they can figure out a way to get rid of its resident cat. "The Dover Boys" is the tale of human brothers Tom, Dick, and Larry and their fiancée (!), Dora. When Dora is kidnapped by dastardly Dan Backslide, the Dover boys must spring to action in this surreally imaginative Perils of Pauline/gay '90s send-up. In "A Bear for Punishment," the world's dumbest bear family - Ma, Pa, and Junyer - try not to kill each other while celebrating Fathers' Day.
Disc three is dedicated to "Tweety & Sylvester and Friends." Tweety and Sylvester star in the first nine shorts. Although most of these shorts, too, suffer from repetitious plots - Sylvester tries unsuccessfully to capture and eat Tweety - they seem manage to seem different from one another thanks to their diversity of settings: a department store ("A Bird in a Guilty Cage"), a train ("All A Bir-r-r-d"), a national park ("Tweet Tweet Tweety"), and even a luxury apartment ("Room and Bird"). Standouts include "Gift Wrapped," in which Sylvester attempts to eat Granny's Christmas gift, Tweety, while simultaneously trying to avoid being eaten by her other Christmas gift, a giant bulldog; "Ain't She Tweet," where a yard full of bulldogs stands between Sylvester and his next meal; and "Snow Business," in which Sylvester and Tweety start off as pals until a blizzard strands Granny in town and leaves her isolated cabin short of food. It is also interesting to note that Sylvester is unnamed in some shorts (Tweety is given sole billing) and is named Thomas in the Academy Award-winning "Tweetie Pie."
Five of disc three's six remaining shorts feature Porky Pig. "Old Glory" is unusual in that it has more in common with classroom educational films than zany Looney Tunes shorts. In it, Porky wonders why he needs to learn the Pledge of Allegiance. Uncle Sam comes along to set him straight, taking Porky on a jingoistic trip through American history. The Dali-esque "Porky in Wackyland" is one of this collection's two black and white shorts (with the other being "You Ought To Be in Pictures," Porky's foray into the live-action world, on disc four). In it, Porky travels to Wackyland (population "100 Nuts and a Squirrel") in search of the elusive Do-Do bird. Filled with strange imagery (some of it seemingly inspired by Hieronymus Bosch's more nightmarish stuff) and insane humor, this short displays much imagination.
Disc four consists of "Looney Tunes All-Stars: On Stage and Screen." This excellent disc collects a variety of classics, some starring Looney Tunes characters ("Back Alley Oproar," in which Elmer attempts to sleep while Sylvester sings opera outside his window), others featuring stand-alone characters (the clever literary parody of "Book Revue," which often feels like a Mad Magazine feature come to life). The lineup on this disc is so stellar - from the caricatures of Hollywood stars in "Hollywood Steps Out" to "The Three Little Bops," the hep-cat take on "The Three Little Pigs" - that an entire review could be devoted to it alone.
Two, however, are so terrific that they are liable to be at the top of many fans' list of favorites. The first is "One Froggy Evening," the legendary short in which a worker helping to demolish a building discovers a mysterious box in its cornerstone. Upon opening the box, the poor schlub discovers a frog that can sing and dance. Seeing the frog as his way to fame and fortune, the construction worker sets about trying to make the amphibian a star. There's only one problem: while the frog won't shut up in private, it refuses to sing in front of other people. This comic masterpiece uses no dialogue - only the frog's exuberant performances are heard. The transitions between the frog's private singing and strutting to its public lassitude and belching defiance are incredibly funny.
The second is "What's Opera, Doc?", the operatic short in which Elmer vows to "kill da wabbit." Filled with striking imagery and clever lyrics, this parody of Wagnerian opera is sublimely imaginative. It isn't as funny as most Looney Tunes shorts - it often feels like an art film rather than a cartoon - but is extremely entertaining.
For a complete listing of all the shorts included in Volume Two, visit our individual disc details page.
As with the previous Golden Collection, the four discs that make up this collection are housed in a foldout digipak which in turn slides into a cardboard sleeve. This time around, however, the outer sleeve is purple, and a circular cutout at its center allows Bugs and Daffy to peer out from the digipak below. The packaging is acceptable, but it is once again the least effective part of the collection. Even releases of lesser titles like Jonny Quest and Tom & Jerry have more dynamic packaging. The discs themselves are steeped in Warner Brothers history, but the list of shorts included on the digipak fails to indicate when the shorts were produced and/or premiered. Once again, the packaging could have benefited from a final proofread - one extra listed on the packaging, "Sinkin' in the Bathtub," does not seem to have been included on DVDs.
The DVD menus do not live up to the high standard set by Volume One, but they are still pretty good. From the main menu, viewers can choose to play all of the shorts, access the individual shorts, go to the languages menu, or view the extras menu. The individual shorts menus no longer feature stills from each short when the short's title is highlighted. If the shorts have a related extra - a commentary, a music-only track, or a "Behind-the-Tunes" featurette - then the extra is accessible from the individual shorts menu. These same extras - and all others - are also found in the extras menu.
